Judge Ignores Probable Cause in Patriot Act Scolding

U.S. District Courts on the west coast are notorious for their liberal rulings and anti-government bias. We speak from experience in making that statement, having attempted in years past, usually fruitlessly, to meet their wildly erratic standards for probable cause even for investigations of terrorism or what are termed “terroristic threats” in many jurisdictions. Courts similar in ideology to the one that refused to protect the Pledge of Allegiance’s “one nation under God” wording routinely bend over backward to protect criminal and terrorism suspects from the dreaded Patriot Act. Federal law enforcement agencies in California, Oregon, and Washington find it increasingly difficult to find U.S. Attorneys willing to prosecute their cases regardless of the available evidence because the district judges are loathe to issuing search or arrest warrants, regardless of the severity of the crime or a suspect’s likelihood to flee once he has discovered he is under surveillance or his home or vehicle have been searched.

The political bias of the west’s federal district courts have made them overtly hostile to virtually all provisions of the Patriot Act, and cases brought before them that were investigated under expanded law enforcement authority provided by the Patriot Act are viewed by these judges as golden opportunities to strike at the hated act and more importantly, the president responsible for it, whom they almost unanimously despise.

It was with that underlying opportunistic mentality that U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken heard Brandon Mayfield’s lawsuit against the U.S. Government for violating Mayfield’s constitutional guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures. Mayfield was the Oregon lawyer and converted Muslim whom the FBI mistakenly identified as one of the terrorists responsible for the Madrid rail bombing in 2004. That terrorist attack killed nearly two hundred and was the highest priority investigation for international law enforcement, including the FBI, which was tasked with running latent fingerprints found on a detonator at the scene of the bombing through its print matching database known as AFIS. The AFIS system is not exclusive to the FBI, as most federal agencies now use electronic fingerprint scanners when processing suspects, and all prints are transmitted to the central AFIS database.

Unfortunately for all parties involved in the Madrid investigation, AFIS identified a number of possible matches to the fingerprint found on the detonator. Through human error by FBI forensic specialists Mayfield’s prints, which were in the system due to his prior U.S. military service, were identified as a positive match. Nineteen days elapsed between Mayfield’s identification as a suspect in the bombing and the FBI’s discovery and announcement of its fingerprint error. Mayfield was the top media story after his arrest and according to his lawsuit his reputation and legal practice suffered irreparable damage due to the government’s mistake. The government settled a portion of the lawsuit and apologized to Mayfield.

Not satisfied with the punitive damages paid by the government in its settlement, Mayfield demanded as part of the settlement to retain the right to challenge provisions of the Patriot Act that he felt had been abused during the FBI’s investigation that mistakenly implicated him. Judge Ann Aiken clearly relished this opportunity to rule in favor of this sympathetic figure and wrote a scathing chastisement of President Bush (referred to as the anonymous Executive Branch) and the reviled Patriot Act and the equally despised Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows for warrantless wiretaps in terrorism investigations under certain circumstances but was not a creation of the Bush administration. FISA has been with us since the 1970s and was legislatively approved by a Democrat controlled Congress at the time. Despite this clear distinction, Aiken ruled that two provisions of the Patriot Act violated constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

There is no question that the FBI made a mistake in its matching of Mayfield’s fingerprint with those found in Madrid. Yet, according to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), a decidedly liberal organization, if the FBI used warrantless wiretapping, electronic surveillance, or searches during its investigation of Mayfield, it did so under the authority of FISA, not the Patriot Act. Judge Aiken took it upon herself to strike at the Patriot Act in a case where the powers granted by the Patriot Act do not appear to have been abused. The NACDL reported:

All of the trains involved in the March 11 bombings left from or had traveled through the Acala de Henares train station, in Madrid. Shortly after the bombings, in a van parked in the vicinity of the station, Spanish National Police discovered a blue plastic bag containing detonation materials similar to the devices used in the bombings. On this bag, a number of latent fingerprints were observed.

On March 17, the digital image of at least one of these latent fingerprints, Latent Fingerprint No. 17, was electronically transmitted to the FBI crime lab in Quantico, Virginia. After receiving the digital image of Latent Fingerprint No. 17, the FBI’s Latent Print Unit conducted an examination of the latent print by running it through its AFIS database. The AFIS database search produced 20 possible matches. FBI Senior Fingerprint Examiner Terry Green manually compared the potential matches with the digital image of Latent Fingerprint No. 17 and found a “100 percent” match with the fourth ranked print on the list. The source of the matching print was identified as being an American citizen and former Army lieutenant, Brandon Mayfield. Green’s match was purportedly confirmed by two other FBI fingerprint examiners.

It is not presently known how many of the twenty potential AFIS candidates were examined and whether there were any dissenters within the FBI’s Latent Print Unit. Nor is it known whether the identification process was influenced by information pertaining to Mayfield’s religious adherence to Islam or activities as a lawyer prior to the match being officially declared.

On or about March 20, the FBI reported its findings to the United States Attorney’s Office in Portland, which then commenced an investigation. On April 2, the FBI sent a letter to the Spanish authorities informing them of the identification of Mayfield. However, in a memo dated April 13, the Forensic Science Division of the Spanish National Police responded to the FBI that the purported match was “conclusively negative.”

On April 14, “rumors that Spanish authorities were questioning whether the print matched Mayfield” became known to the prosecutors in Portland. On April 16, the prosecutors became aware that the Spanish authorities “couldn’t confirm the FBI’s match.” On April 21, a representative from the FBI Latent Print Unit flew to Madrid and met with ten members of the Forensic Science Division of the Spanish National Police (SNP). At this meeting, the FBI representative presented the Spanish police officials “with a three-page document detailing their position that the prints from the bag belonged to Mr. Mayfield....”

...At some point in March or April, the FBI began surveillance of Mayfield. Based on a number of extraordinary events at his home and certain redactions in the district court search warrant affidavits, it strongly appears that he was subjected to “sneak and peek” and electronic surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The government has declined to confirm or deny the use of FISA warrantless surveillance procedures.

In its submissions to the district court, on May 6, in addition to a material witness arrest warrant, the government sought issuance of broadly drafted search warrants for Mayfield’s law office, home, and personal vehicles.... Relying principally on the FBI’s identification of the digital image of Latent Fingerprint No. 17 as being Mayfield’s fingerprint, United States District Judge Robert E. Jones issued the requested material witness arrest warrant and search warrants.

The NACDL recognized that although the government refused to acknowledge the use/non-use of FISA authority in this case, it also obtained traditional search warrants from District Court Judge Jones, who clearly determined that based on the fingerprint match the FBI had probable cause to believe Mayfield had handled the Madrid detonator and thus searches of his home, vehicles, and law practice were reasonable.

Judge Aiken, however, chose to ignore these facts and relied on emotional anti-Patriot Act fervor so abundant in her district. According to the AP story:

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as amended by the Patriot Act, "now permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment."

…Mayfield claimed that secret searches of his house and office under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act violated the Fourth Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure. Aiken agreed with Mayfield, repeatedly criticizing the government.

…The Mayfield case has been an embarrassment for the federal government. Last year, the Justice Department's internal watchdog faulted the FBI for sloppy work in mistakenly linking Mayfield to the Madrid bombings. That report said federal prosecutors and FBI agents had made inaccurate and ambiguous statements to a federal judge to get arrest and criminal search warrants against Mayfield.

These AP excerpts are critical, because none of the court documents established that Mayfield was subjected to warrantless searches or eavesdropping. On the other hand, the court documents reviewed by Judge Aiken included traditional search and arrest warrants and affidavits presented to and approved by a fellow District Court Judge. The Justice Department admitted that the fingerprint mishap was “sloppy” and there were some inaccuracies in the affidavits the warrants were based upon, but the key here is that warrants were issued through routine judicial action in addition to or instead of FISA or the Patriot Act. Thus while Judge Aiken preaches from her political pulpit about the evil Patriot Act and its “extra-Constitutional” powers given to the executive branch (i.e. President Bush), in this case there is only tangible evidence that the FBI obtained probable cause warrants from the federal judiciary, not from anyone in the executive branch. Apparently she was so eager to inject her political views into the national debate over the Patriot Act that she could not restrain herself to wait for a case where FISA or Patriot Act provisions clearly had been violated.

The NACDL and the AP versions were in agreement that the FBI conducted searches of Mayfield’s home, law practice, and vehicles, all with traditional probable cause warrants. Likewise, the arrest warrant for Mayfield was supported by a probable cause finding by Judge Jones. Rather than condemn the Patriot Act or FISA, Judge Aiken should have limited her criticism to judicial colleague Judge Jones if she genuinely believed there was no basis for probable cause and explained to the nation why Jones was wrong to issue probable cause warrants. Alas, it is easier to assault a controversial legislative act and an unpopular president than it is to look your colleague in the eye after ignoring his good faith issuance of warrants. Judge Aiken’s written decision provided a political lecture instead of legal justification, and FISA falsehoods rather than facts.

Technorati Tags: Patriot Act Brandon Mayfield Judge Ann Aiken FISA FBI Madrid Bombing Search and Seizure Unconstitutional

General Thinks Mullahs Rational Enough for Nukes

Retired General John Abizaid is working hard to disprove the old adage that “Old generals never die, they just fade away.” Unfortunately, many otherwise astute minds are relying on the former CentCom Commander’s outdated worldview to formulate their own policy positions, particularly in our looming confrontation with Iran over that nation’s nuclear ambitions. If America follows Gen. Abizaid's advice, we may all "just fade away" much sooner than we had envisioned.

The Washington Times’ Arnaud de Borchgrave, whom we have praised previously for sound analysis on other topics, quoted Ret. Gen. Abizaid extensively in his recent column on potential conflict with Iran, “Networked and Lethal.” De Borchgrave subscribes to the view that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has aroused international scorn and sympathy in equal portions, is merely a powerless puppet whose strings are controlled by Iran’s Supreme Religious Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

This analysis, by itself, is relatively accurate and approaching diplomacy with Iran from that perspective is a somewhat prudent course to follow. However, de Borchgrave draws upon Gen. Abizaid to support his position that military action against Iran would be a mistake. According to both men, using force against Iran to eliminate uranium enrichment sites would be foolish and dangerous because, somewhere under the lecherous layers of power represented by Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, lies a trickling rivulet of revolution that seeks peace with the west and only civilian use of nuclear power for electricity.

We will set aside for the moment the fact that this optimistic view of Iran’s underlying potential for political reform requires, to borrow from Hillary Clinton’s lexicon, “the willful suspension of disbelief.” Senator Clinton used that phrase to bludgeon General David Petraeus’ report to congress on progress in Iraq, where despite abundant evidence of silver linings, critics choose to see only the dark cloud. By contrast, in evaluating Iran’s potential for peaceful coexistence with the West and its Middle East neighbors as a nuclear nation, those same critics embrace wishful thinking and cite historical references to Persian culture and traditions that they conveniently forget have long since been replaced by radical Islamic ideology.

Ret. Gen Abizaid is a strong advocate of what is, for a leader who was previously so instrumental in the War on Terror, a remarkably reckless and illogical policy toward Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Gen. Abizaid sees no reason why Iran should not be allowed to develop nuclear technology, apparently including nuclear weapons, because he mistakenly equates Iran with the former Soviet Union and the current standoff with Iran as just another iteration of the Cold War. The following excerpts set forth de Borchgrave’s and Gen. Abizaid’s reasoning for choosing a nuclear Iran over military conflict to prevent that eventuality:

Mr. Ahmadinejad, who today will put in his third appearance in three years before the U.N. General Assembly, has little power in Iran's theocracy. The key levers are in the hands of Supreme Religious Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Everything from media to intelligence and including the armed forces and parliament is in his hands. And former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani, who lost the presidential election to Mr. Ahmadinejad in 2005, was elected chairman of Iran's Assembly of Experts, the body that elects the supreme spiritual leader. Mr. Rafsanjani defeated a hard-line cleric who was Mr. Ahmadinejad's friend and protector.

Unlike Mr. Ahmadinejad, who would seem to welcome a military showdown with the United States, if only to force the entire Middle East to side with Iran against the U.S., both Messrs. Khamenei and Rafsanjani are apparently worried about the voices calling for the bombing of Iran's estimated 23 widely scattered underground nuclear facilities.

…Former CentCom commander Gen. Abizaid, who speaks fluent Arabic and whose command extended from Afghanistan to Iraq and the rest of the Middle East and took in a large chunk of Africa from Egypt to the Horn of Africa down to Kenya (27 countries), said bombing Iran would be catastrophic. It would set the entire Middle East ablaze and bring millions more recruits to al Qaeda's anti-U.S. bandwagon.

Gen. Abizaid, now retired, says: "We can stop Iranian expansion. We contained the Soviet Union with tens of thousands of nuclear warheads in missiles targeted against the United States. But we kept talking to Soviet leaders throughout the worst of the Cold War. And we blocked Soviet expansionism and we also learned to live with China after President Nixon restored diplomatic relations."

Iran, the general explains, is a dangerous power that seeks weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and to dominate its neighbors much the way the Soviet Union developed satellite and client states. The United States should deliver clear messages. One or two Iranian nukes should not rattle us. If they fired them, Iran would be instantly vaporized.

"The ayatollahs are heirs to a great civilization," he said in a colloquy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, "and they are not in the business of collective suicide. Using suicide bombers against Western or pro-Western countries is one thing, but committing national suicide quite another. They aren't mad." And we should talk turkey with Iran at the highest level as soon as possible.

It is stunning that a man with the mindset that “one or two Iranian nukes should not rattle us” was ever selected as the CentCom commander. His comparison between the former Soviet Union and the current Iranian regime is frighteningly naïve, especially from one who many look to as an “expert” on Middle Eastern matters. Ret. Gen. Abizaid either conveniently or cunningly ignores the fact that during the Cold War nuclear capability belonged to only a handful of nations and was a jealously and fanatically guarded secret. There was virtually no concern within the intelligence community that the Soviets would develop a nuclear weapon, sell it to Islamic or other terrorists, and help them to smuggle it out of country to be used against the United States or its allies.

Quite simply, the Soviets feared that any nuclear weapon used against the United States would be blamed on them and retaliation would not be long in coming. Thus it was in the self-interest of the Soviets not to share nuclear technology with radicals who might strike the United States rashly. Though dangerous in its own right, the Soviet Union wielded nuclear weapons in large quantity as a demonstration of national strength. There is far more fear that a nuclear Iran would use or sell its weapons than there ever was that the Soviets would do so. The Soviets likewise did not harbor any sympathy for or ally themselves with Muslims and were understandably alarmed by the potential consequences of any nuclear Islamic nation.

Ret. Gen. Abizaid seems to think that our ability to “instantly vaporize” Iran should make us confident that Iran would never be irrational enough to use nuclear weapons against America. In essence, the general advocates applying the strategy of deterrence, or Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) to Iran. MAD was crafted to defend against an enemy's all out assault, an attack intended to cripple America with strikes against multiple cities simultaneously. It was never meant as a deterrent against terrorists who would be perfectly satisfied with a random detonation in just one American city. To equate MAD's capacity to deter the Soviet Union with a similar effect on radical Islamic terrorists is illogical in the extreme.

It is baffling why this so-called expert would not prefer keeping nuclear weapons out of Iranian hands in the first place. Radical Islamic terrorists are not known to be reasonable, rational people. Gen. Abizaid would like to believe that the Iranian nation as a whole is not suicidal and that “they aren’t mad.” He forgets, however, that the weaponry of Iran is in the hands of a small number of religious zealots who preach loudly of their role in ushering in an apocalyptic future. The Iranian nation may not be bent on collective suicide, but its radical leaders have no such qualms about martyring themselves and their nation to fulfill prophecy.

The general’s portrait of Iran as an inherently peaceful nation fails to address what is undeniably the greatest source of concern regarding Iran: that it will provide nuclear weapons and/or technology to terrorist groups who would not hesitate to use them against America and its allies. A nuclear-armed Iran would be unlikely to engage in a tactical nuclear conflict with America, but most Americans would not share Gen. Abizaid’s opinion that we should not be rattled by “one or two Iranian nukes.” Which cities in Europe would Gen. Abizaid be so casually willing to lose? What would be left of Israel after “one or two Iranian nukes?” The nuclear devices would detonate and we would face then the same question we face today: Should we take action to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment and nuclear technology sites? The only difference would be the tragic loss of millions of lives due to a nuclear terrorist attack that would have been preventable.

Given Iran’s well-documented record of funding, equipping, training, and transporting terrorists who attack American civilians and military forces on a daily basis and who have struck at Israel for decades, it requires the willful suspension of disbelief to think Iran would not sell or give freely its future nuclear weapons to terrorist groups it already supplies with weapons. The confusion after a nuclear terrorist attack would be paralyzing to America. Some would blame it on Russians; others would insist it was a preemptive strike by an increasingly aggressive China; Al Qaeda would naturally be suspected, but in the aftermath of such an attack it would be difficult to establish who orchestrated the event and how to respond. The knee-jerk reaction would be to annihilate whatever nation produced the weapon and supplied it to terrorists.

Gen. Abizaid appears to have great respect for Iran and its Persian culture and traditions. He should recognize that the best way to preserve Iran’s people and culture is to prevent its current radical regime from ever developing nuclear weapons that, through their existence and potential use or sale, would jeopardize the future of the entire Iranian nation. Neither the world nor the Iranian people can afford to take the risk that mullahs with nuclear weapons would act responsibly in possession of nuclear weapons. Their record terror sponsorship, their stated vision of a world without Israel, and their hatred for America should rattle us out of our diplomatic course that has allowed Iran to bring over 3,000 centrifuges online and race toward sufficient uranium enrichment for weapons production.

Gen. Abizaid is a trusting soul, but trust in the intentions of Islamic radicals in pursuit of nuclear weapons may prove suicidal. This may be the only situation in recorded history where America should take the word of Ahmadinejad and his mullah puppeteers at face value and ignore the advice of one of our decorated retired generals.

Technorati Tags: General John Abizaid Iran Ayatollah Khamenei Ahmadinejad Iranian Nuclear Weapons War on Terror Cold War

German Cop Sacrificed to Government Gods

It is a cardinal rule of law enforcement that if something unplanned occurs that is detrimental to an ongoing investigation or surveillance, the lowliest agent or officer will be the sacrificial lamb. His career is slaughtered to appease the angry gods of government, who demand a sacrifice when embarrassments or liabilities arise from an operation gone bad.

In America, when terrorism investigations are compromised, federal agencies move swiftly to blame the state and local agencies they have been partnered with for leaking information or lacking sufficient experience to investigate suspects effectively. The finger of blame is never pointed inward. Likewise, when state-level criminal investigations are conducted jointly with city police departments or county sheriffs' offices and an informant is burned or the target of a surveillance is lost, it is always the "localest yokel" who is blamed for the operation's failure. The good news is that America is not alone in fostering this phenomenon among the ranks of federal and local law enforcement; unfortunately, that is also the bad news, as one of our key allies in the War on Terror demonstrated recently.

Media coverage of the arrests of three Islamic terrorists plotting to hit American targets, including Ramstein Air Base and Frankfurt Airport in Germany last week has achieved global saturation levels. What drew my attention for further scrutiny was Monday's revelation of a possible "blunder" by a German traffic police officer, who, according to reports, allegedly tipped off the three terror suspects prior to their eventual arrests that they were on a German government watch list. Of course, if the story were that simple, the traffic cop could rightly be castigated for an incident of incompetence that might have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Americans at the hands of these potential terrorist bombers. However, there is more to this story than alleged negligent bungling by an excited traffic officer.

Let's look first at CNN's description of what occurred prior to the arrests of the three terror suspects in Germany last week:

The three terror suspects arrested last week in Germany may have sped up their bombing plot after a loud-talking police officer inadvertently alerted them that they were on a federal watch list, an unnamed source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN.

The men were stopped by a traffic officer in the weeks prior to their arrest last Tuesday. The traffic stop was described by the head of Germany's Federal Criminal Investigation Office, Joerg Ziercke, as "a setback for the group."

But it may have also been a boon for the suspects, who had been under surveillance for over six months.

Federal investigators had bugged the vehicle carrying the suspects during the traffic stop and could hear one of the police officers loudly exclaim that the men were on a federal watch list, the source said.

Days later, the men were observed mixing a massive amount of explosive materials that German authorities said could have resulted in a stronger explosion than the terror attacks in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005.

At that point, investigators moved in and arrested the men at a rental house in west-central Germany.

Even readers with law enforcement backgrounds likely cringed when reading this account of the "loudmouth" police officer notifying the suspects of their inclusion on the German watch list. Yet readers with experience planning and conducting complex surveillance operations should be asking themselves how a routine traffic stop ever occurred during a classified surveillance operation. The terror suspects were under surveillance by Germany's equivalent of the FBI, the Federal Criminal Investigation Office, which, according to CNN's report, had installed listening devices in the terrorists' vehicle because American intelligence had warned German authorities of their identities and plans.

Having planned and participated in many such surveillance operations, I found it unthinkable that Federal Criminal Investigation Office officials had not collaborated sufficiently with the local German police department to avoid even the possibility of the terror suspects having contact with any police entities throughout the duration of the surveillance. It is a routine practice to advise local police departments when state or federal agencies will be conducting surveillance within their jurisdictions for one simple reason: to avoid "blue on blue" incidents in which officers and agents are in real danger of mistakenly using lethal force on each other, neither recognizing each other as law enforcement until it is too late.

Surveillance planners are expected to ensure that local police officials are aware of an ongoing surveillance, even if the specific identities of the suspects remains unknown to them due to classification clearances. Local officials do not need to know who is under surveillance, but for officer safety they do need to know when it is occurring, what vehicles are involved, and what their instructions are in relation to the surveillance.

This is where the breakdown occurred in Germany, and although the unfortunate traffic officer is bearing the brunt of criticism for mentioning the watch list around the suspects, he is far less culpable than the Federal Criminal Investigation Office agents who clearly failed adequately brief the local traffic officers that under no circumstances should the suspects' vehicle be followed, approached, or stopped by any law enforcement vehicles.

This suspects had been under surveillance for six months, and apparently no German federal agent thought it necessary or wise to provide local traffic officers with instructions regarding the importance of avoiding the suspects, doing nothing to alarm them or make them suspect greater law enforcement presence, and above all to avoid direct confrontation with them unless requested otherwise by federal officials.

An effective surveillance is done without the suspects ever seeing a vehicle that even remotely resembles styles commonly used by law enforcement. To this end, law enforcement agencies purchase sports cars, SUVs, and other vehicles that fit into any neighborhood and bear no tell-tale signs of law enforcement presence, such as visible antennas, grill lights, visible radios in the cabin, and others. The surveillance team wants suspects to go about their daily business, visiting their associates, shopping for bomb-making supplies, going to their bomb-making facility if it is not in one of their homes, such as a storage rental unit or relatives' home.

It is the daily routine that allows the surveillance team to understand what is normal and what is not in their behavior, and this cannot be achieved if the suspects routinely encounter law enforcement vehicles. Such encounters, even if not traffic stop occurs, tend to spook the suspects and encourage them to alter their itineraries, change travel routes, and to be more aware of their surroundings, looking for possible surveillance.

While the "loudmouth" traffic officer in Germany certainly should not have mentioned the government watch list in such close proximity to the suspects, and his actions apparently did prompt them to hasten their production of bombs for the intended strike on American civilian and military targets, he was placed in position to blunder by a significantly graver goof.

The local traffic officer never would have stopped the suspects' vehicle if clear and unmistakable rules of engagement had been provided to the local police department by German federal officials running the surveillance. Unfortunately, this effort by Germany's federal agents to keep its local police in the dark has placed the traffic officer's slip-up under glaring media light. A mistake by one who should know better was a blunder. A mistake by those who should have known best of all was inexcusable.

Thankfully, these suspects merely sped up their bomb production and were still captured rather than disappearing to reemerge elsewhere and strike other, unsuspecting, targets. We should all hope that Germany's federal agents, and their international counterparts, learned a valuable lesson on proper surveillance planning and information sharing. More likely than not, when agencies hold their cards too close to the vest, they later learn they have dealt themselves a very bad hand.

Technorati Tags:
German Police, Federal Criminal Investigation Office, Bomb Plot, Islamic Terrorists, Surveillance, Terrorist Watch Lists, Counterterrorism, Ramstein Air Base

Counterterror Chief Interview Culls Only Cliches

Professional athletes and government intelligence officials have at least one shared characteristic: Both give a lot of media interviews, but despite an abundance of words spoken neither offers anything beyond tired clichés. I often wonder why journalists bother conducting such interviews. Rarely will a professional athlete state anything more substantive than “we just take each game one at a time,” or “we just need to play hard.” Likewise, intelligence officials, by necessity, rarely provide any statements more enlightening than “al-Qaeda wants to kill Americans,” or “It’s not IF we will be hit again, it is WHEN.” Both of those canned intelligence answers are of course true, but journalists hardly needed to interview an intelligence expert to confirm their veracity.

Newsweek reporters recently interviewed the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) chief, Retired Vice Admiral John Scott Redd, and stunned no one with their headline article, “We are Going to Get Hit Again.” Did they really need to interrupt the presumably busy work schedule of the NCTC chief to obtain such common sense information? In the cat and mouse game that occurs daily between the news media and the intelligence community, one ground rule applies: when an intelligence officer speaks on the record, nothing newsworthy will be offered. The corollary to that rule is that only intelligence sources who speak on condition of anonymity have the potential to reveal something that rises beyond clichéd sound bites.

What gems of wisdom did the Newsweek team mine from the understandably tight-lipped NCTC chief? Some examples follow:

What I’ll tell you about bin Laden is if we knew where he was, he’d either be dead or captured. It’s that simple. [He’s] obviously a tough target. That whole area is a tough target.

…We’ve got this intelligence threat; we’re pretty certain we know what’s going on. We don’t have all the tactical details about it, [but] in some ways it’s not unlike the U.K. aviation threat last year. So we know there is a threat out there. The question is, what do we do about it? And the response was, we stood up an interagency task force under NCTC leadership….

…We have very strong indicators that Al Qaeda is planning to attack the West and is likely to [try to] attack, and we are pretty sure about that….

…What we do have, though, is a couple of threads that indicate, you know, some very tactical stuff, and that's what—you know, that’s what you’re seeing bits and pieces of, and I really can’t go much more into it….

…It’s still there. It’s very serious, you know, and we’re watching it. We’re learning more all the time, but it’s still a very serious threat….

…But these guys are smart. They are determined. They are patient. So over time we are going to lose a battle or two. We are going to get hit again, you know, but you’ve got to have the stick-to-itiveness or persistence to outlast it…..

…Statistically, you can’t bat 1.000 forever, but we haven’t been hit for six years, [which is] no accident….

NCTC Chief Redd gave the type of answers journalists should expect from intelligence officials: clichéd, common sense, and superficial. Had he answered Newsweek’s questions in any more detail he would have divulged classified information, a felony offense. Newsweek’s readers may have been impressed by an interview of such a high level official, but they were surely disappointed by the complete lack of original or newsworthy information provided in the article.

Announcing to Americans that terrorists are planning to attack the west is equivalent to professional athletes stating in pre-game interviews that “our opponent will come at us with everything they have,” or “the team that wants it most will win tonight.” These interviews offer ample truth, but sparse substance. Athletes, like intelligence officials, are wise to speak only in general terms rather than reveal anything from their playbooks that might help the opposing team. Fans and news readers may find the practice annoying, but success on the sports field or battlefield often depends on holding the playbook close to the vest. Admiral Redd did an admirable job of pleasing Newsweek with headline quotes while telling Americans nothing we did not already know.

John Scott Redd NCTC National Counterterrorism Center Newsweek Al Qaeda War on Terror Intelligence Agencies

Bush's Wars Blamed for Police Ammo Crisis

If your local police officer or sheriff’s deputy shoots at a dangerous suspect and misses because he spent too little time practicing at the firearms range, you should blame President Bush. That was the message of a Washington Post report Monday titled “Police Feeling Wartime Pinch on Ammunition,” which placed at the feet of the president the responsibility for making ammunition for local law enforcement agencies difficult to obtain due to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Post report was an illustration of what occurs when a reporter obtains multiple explanations for an alarming trend but chooses to emphasize the only possible explanation that fits the reporter’s or perhaps the news organization’s political agenda. The report included several factors that contribute to existing shortages of law enforcement ammunition for training, but each of these was dismissed in favor of adding to the list of societal and international crises allegedly caused by President Bush: “Quagmire” in Iraq; Hurricane Katrina; global warming; “cooking” intelligence to start wars; and now creating a famine of ammunition needed for law enforcement training.

Clearly intended to alarm local residents of the DC metropolitan region, the Post report opened by painting a dire portrait of law enforcement agencies eventually running out of ammunition:

The U.S. military's soaring demand for small-arms ammunition, fueled by two wars abroad, has left domestic police agencies less able to quickly replenish their supplies, leading some to conserve rounds by cutting back on weapons training, police officials said.

To varying degrees, officials in Montgomery, Loudoun and Anne Arundel counties said, they have begun rationing or making other adjustments to accommodate delivery schedules that have changed markedly since the military campaigns began in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Before the war, lag time from order to delivery was three to four months; now it's six months to a year," said James Gutshall, property supervisor for the Loudoun Sheriff's Office. "I purchased as much as I could this year because I was worried it would be a problem."

Montgomery police began limiting the amount of ammunition available to officers on the practice range a little more than year ago, said Lucille Baur, a county police spokeswoman. The number of cases a group of officers can use in a training session has been cut from 10 to three.

But some expressed concern that a prolonged shortage could eventually affect officers' competence as marksmen. Practice with live ammunition is a crucial part of any police training regime, experts say. A lack of practice can translate into diminished ability in the field, where accuracy and speed can mean the difference between life and death, they say.

So is the War on Terror really draining our local law enforcement agencies of the ammunition they need to train and remain prepared to serve and protect us? The answer is actually provided in the Post article, but the reporter failed to put the pieces of the puzzle together and view the big picture behind the ammunition shortages.

First, my experience with a federal agency that required stringent marksmanship training and monthly firearms re-qualification also included my observing shortages of live ammunition for training that pre-dated 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. After successfully qualifying at the firearms range, we were not allowed to repeat the range exercises because ammunition needed to be preserved for those who had not yet re-qualified. Again, this was before 9/11 or the current War on Terror. The reason for those shortages, which continue to this day, was budget priorities. There was plenty of ammunition available from a variety of vendors, but insufficient funds to purchase it. That is not to say that law enforcement agencies intentionally place a low priority on training days at the range. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nearly all law enforcement professionals I have worked with would be willing to dedicate far more time to situational exercises and marksmanship training than is made available to them by their agencies. However, these agencies are given strict budgets of taxpayer money and must distribute funds in priority order.

Officer or agent salaries and benefits must come first, followed by facilities, utilities, and equipment including duty weapons, vehicles, ballistic vests, and a host of other necessities for public safety and national security. Contract vendors of such equipment understand the necessity of their products and charge exorbitant prices that quickly erode ever-shrinking budgets. When you throw in the costs of running temporary jails at sheriffs’ stations, budget needs rapidly become a challenge for administrators to meet. Do you cut back on 911 dispatchers and ballistic vests or ammunition set aside for training? Both are important, but choices must be made. If agencies are facing shortages of ammunition for training, it is far more likely that the shortage is the result of a conscious priority decision rather than the availability of ammunition due to the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Second, for those few and far between agencies that are funded at comfortable levels, experiencing ammunition shortages occur due to poor planning. If vendor delays become a problem, there are competitors available to provide the needed products. Agencies can also order their ammunition further in advance to avoid reordering only when supplies are already becoming dangerously low. The Post report quotes various law enforcement officials tasked with maintaining ammunition supply levels, and in each case the officials describe how it now takes six months to a year to get shipments of ammunition that formerly arrived in three or four months. Is this because so much ammunition is flowing to Iraq and Afghanistan? More likely, it is caused by a fact mentioned only in passing by the Post reporter: law enforcement agencies at all levels of government since 9/11 have focused on obtaining better equipment, more training, and more ammunition for their officers, deputies, and agents to better prepare them to defend their communities from terrorist attacks.

The Post report repeatedly asserted that the bulk of ammunition produced by manufacturers was flowing to Iraq and Afghanistan but offered no statistics to illustrate the difference between how much ammunition was shipped to military units fighting the War on Terror and the quantity shipped to law enforcement agencies throughout the United States. Likewise, the Post made no effort to research whether military shipments from the same supplier were also delayed because of the increased demand from law enforcement agencies. The report did mention that one major supplier of ammunition had experienced an increase of forty percent in orders from law enforcement agencies in 2006 and business was booming so nicely that the company was expanding its production levels and its profit margin to accommodate the growing demand. Two critical factors explaining the shortage of ammunition for law enforcement agencies were thus set forth in the article but only in the context that the rounds requested by law enforcement were of the same caliber as those used by standard-issue military weapons.

The ammunition supplier cited in the article did not indicate that their products were being shipped to the military in higher priority than to law enforcement, but the Post report implied that this was the case, blaming the two war fronts for depriving law enforcement of precious ammunition when the cause was actually underproduction to meet demand. That situation is being corrected through capitalism: the manufacturer is opening new plants and expanding old ones to meet the needs of its customers. If one major supplier cannot keep up with demand, others will.

If you know you will run low of a critical item in your household, such as milk or in my case cereal, you naturally buy a new supply well in advance so you do not find yourself with a bare cupboard. Likewise, law enforcement agencies need to set aside sufficient funds in each year’s budget for the following year’s needs so that equipment can be ordered early enough to overcome supplier delays. Many departments and agencies are beginning to do this, as they are learning from their previous re-supply miscalculations.

Other than competition for ammunition between the military and law enforcement, the shortages currently experienced appear unrelated to President Bush or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There were many explanations for the shortages but the most controversial approach was to blame them on the current administration. While the president and two unpopular wars may have been the most convenient scapegoats for a common supply and demand problem, the most likely explanations were downplayed or used in a limited context designed to fit a pre-determined conclusion. The ammunition shortage is a serious issue that merited more serious attention to its underlying causes.

Technorati Tags: Law Enforcement Ammunition Shortage War on Terror Bush Administration Iraq War Afghanistan Washington Post Live Fire Training

Senseless in Seattle: Self-Inflicted Profiling Angst

It must be confusing to be an FBI agent these days. For years now, the practice of profiling, AKA stereotyping, has been officially forbidden, driven underground in the law enforcement community by political correctness and ACLU lawsuits. Fighting the War on Terror with agents blindfolded to race, religion, ethnicity, and other characteristics is becoming increasingly challenging, made more so by the ironic fact that even when the FBI forgoes profiling in potential terrorism investigations it is still criticized by the very groups it strives not to offend. The FBI’s recent release of photos of two unknown men observed conducting what may have been pre-attack operational planning on several ferries in Washington’s Puget Sound area generated an ironic response from Seattle’s Muslim and Arab-American community leaders.

The context of this incident is important to consider. The FBI, after interviewing ferry passengers and staff, was unsuccessful in identifying the two men, who were observed showing interest in critical and restricted areas of the ferries. So unusual was their behavior that ferry staff and passengers reported it to a ferry captain, who photographed the pair. That photo, obtained from the captain, was turned over to the FBI and subsequently released to the news media along with a request for anyone with information about the two men to contact the FBI. The FBI did not refer to the men as Muslims, Arabs, or even Middle Eastern.

That last fact made the swift and emotional response from Seattle’s Muslim and Arab-American community leaders all the more ironic. Their chief complaint was that they had worked hard to establish cooperative relations with the FBI in Seattle, but the FBI had damaged the tenuous partnership by releasing the ferry suspects’ photos without first consulting Muslim and Arab-American leaders. As reported by the Seattle Times:

Dozens of Muslims and Arabs have complained to community leaders about the photographs. The fallout has led to a meeting planned today between Muslim- and Arab-American community leaders and law-enforcement officials.

"We need to get some type of apology from them and figure out how to get back to where we were," said Rita Zawaideh, head of the Arab-American Community Coalition.

Remember, the FBI merely provided the photos to media sources because it wanted to interview the two men regarding their behavior on the ferries, not because of their appearance. Usually when government agencies are criticized in the media by hyper-sensitive groups, they turn tail and flee from the possibility of lawsuits and accusations of profiling. Fortunately, David Gomez, a supervisor in the FBI’s Seattle Field Office stood his ground and accused Seattle’s Muslim and Arab-American leaders of stereotyping in precisely the same manner they so loudly object to from law enforcement:

Gomez said the agency needs to address certain sensitive issues, but "people in those communities have to get over this sensitivity toward feeling victimized."

Many passengers have been stopped and questioned recently, as the ferry system has stepped up security once the FBI concluded the men might be watching the system. The stops are based on activities, not skin color, Gomez said.

Two days ago, a Seattle Times photographer, who is white, was stopped and questioned after taking photographs near the Mukilteo ferry terminal.

The FBI didn't take the photos of the two men to the Arab- and Muslim-American community because the agency doesn't know if the men are Middle Eastern, Gomez added.

"That seems potentially prejudicial to me, and in some ways worse than simply putting [the photos] out the way we did," Gomez said. "It is not us saying these guys look Middle Eastern."

Thus without knowing whether the ferry suspects were Middle Eastern, the FBI followed the most prudent and politically correct course possible in its quest to identify and locate the two men: it simply released the photos without guessing at the pair’s religious preference or ethnicity, and asked for the public’s help in identifying the two men because they were acting suspiciously on a public conveyance considered an attractive potential terrorist target. The FBI played its cards right in this situation, because had it taken the photos to Seattle’s Muslim and Arab-American community leaders asking for assistance, those leaders could have accused the FBI of assuming the two suspects were Muslim or Middle Eastern based on appearance only, a classic cry of profiling. The complaint of Rita Zawaideh that the FBI had consulted with leaders prior to other releases of suspect photos intentionally omits a crucial element: in those prior instances the FBI had already obtained through investigation some indication that those suspects were in fact Muslims of Middle Eastern descent.

The nature of the cooperative relationship previously established between the FBI’s Seattle office and Seattle’s Muslim leaders should be reexamined. While it is not uncommon for law enforcement to approach such leaders when there is some indication a suspect has ties to a particular religious or ethnic community, it would be unusual for a law enforcement agency to feel obliged to allow those leaders to preview all alerts or lookouts (BOLOs) prior to public release when an agency does not know the religion or ethnicity of a suspect. It would be irresponsible to share such law enforcement sensitive data, and it would be profiling. Should the FBI be required to select leaders from every conceivable ethnic or religious group, who will review suspect photos prior to public release? In a nation so diverse, suspects would have long since fled before the FBI could “consult” with representatives from an endless number of cultural communities.

By their own outrage at the FBI’s failure to consult them before releasing the suspects’ photos, Seattle’s Muslim leaders revealed their own penchant for profiling, clearly becoming angry after viewing the photos on the Internet and coming to their own conclusion that the two suspects were in fact Muslim and Middle Eastern based solely on physical characteristics. Had the FBI come to those same conclusions based on the same criteria, an ACLU lawsuit would have arrived at the FBI’s Seattle office before the ink had dried from its printing. Law enforcement agencies face a serious quandary, forbidden from officially teaching agents the art of profiling while simultaneously condemned for carefully avoiding it.

Seattle’s Muslim and Arab-American leaders did not need law enforcement profiling training to conclude from a photo that the ferry suspects were likely Middle Eastern Muslims. Unlike law enforcement, those leaders are allowed to judge by color rather than character. Their response conjured memories of the peasant mob in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, who when asked by Sir Bedevere how they knew a village woman was a witch replied, “Because she looks like one!” Apparently Seattle’s Muslim leaders applied the same logic when they viewed the ferry suspects’ photos. To its credit, the FBI withheld such superficial judgment, preferring instead to wait for investigative leads that might establish the suspects’ ethnicity.

Technorati Tags:
FBI, Seattle, Ferry, Terrorist Targets, Muslim Leaders, CAIR, Profiling, Arab-Americans, David Gomez, Rita Zawaideh, Terrorist Attack Planning, Puget Sound, War on Terror

NYPD Shoots Own Foot with Terror Report

In most respects, the much publicized NYPD report released yesterday, "Radicalization in the West: The Home-grown Threat," merely reaffirmed long-held concerns in the intelligence and law enforcement communities about the growing ranks and dangers of radicalized American Muslims in the Northeast. In recent years, similar reports and concerns have been shared among intelligence and law enforcement professionals in the Washington, DC and Los Angeles metro areas, among others. The fact that inmates in American prisons, as well as young disaffected Muslims, are converting to radical Islam in increasing numbers and filling the ranks of home grown terror cells with operatives of all races and ethnicities is a sobering truth, not a newly discovered trend.

Several years ago I reviewed a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office report on the recruitment of Hispanic and African-American inmates in California prisons by radical imams that came to similar conclusions as the new NYPD report. The NYPD report was not surprising, although the depth of knowledge about radicalized American Muslims evidenced in the NYPD report far exceeded the intelligence reported by Los Angeles officials.

However, at least Los Angeles officials, unlike their New York colleagues, were more interested in operational security (OPSEC)and restricted dissemination of their report only to local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies rather than grandstanding for the media to demonstrate it's indispensability for budgetary or political purposes, as NYPD appears to have done. It is true that NYPD is indispensable to the safety of millions and performs its duties well, but it's choice to make the new report on homegrown terror available to the public will prove, in the long run, self-defeating for all law enforcement and intelligence community professionals.

My assessment of NYPD’s decision to release its report to the public through the media may seem harsh. Many will argue that the public has a right to know and can better assist law enforcement if evidences of radicalization are generally known. If the NYPD report had been intended to raise public awareness or to solicit public assistance, I would concede that public release of the document would have been necessary. However, that was not the stated purpose behind NYPD’s report. The document, according to Brian Michael Jenkins, Senior Adviser to the President of the Rand Corporation, a powerfully influential government “think tank,” the NYPD report contained sensitive information that would be utilized best only by the intelligence and law enforcement communities. Jenkins, who contributed an “outside expert’s view” to the report itself, assessed the NYPD report and unwittingly provided a strong argument for why the report should have been labeled “law enforcement sensitive” with limited distribution:

The utility of the NYPD model, however, goes beyond analysis. It will inform the training of intelligence analysts and law enforcement personnel engaged in counterterrorist missions. It will allow us to identify similarities and differences, and changes in patterns over time. It will assist prosecutors and courts in the very difficult task of deciding when the boundary between a bunch of guys sharing violent fantasies and a terrorist cell determined to go operational has been crossed. Above all, by identifying key junctions in the journey to terrorist jihad, it should help in the formulation of effective and appropriate strategies aimed at peeling potential recruits away from a dangerous and destructive course.

Of course, now that every current or future radical Muslim can study NYPD’s ninety-page guide to the radicalization process and how law enforcement can detect and deter it, the work of law enforcement and intelligence professionals just became much more difficult. Did NYPD learn nothing from intelligence reports confirming that after the New York Times ill-advisedly exposed the NSA’s terrorist domestic surveillance program in 2005, al Qaeda quickly altered its operational methods and stopped making the types of phone calls the NSA had successfully monitored? The NYPD’s report, and more importantly the choice to release it publicly to bask in the accolades it generated, will certainly render useless all law enforcement training on Islamic radicalization for years to come, as radical American imams and their followers will merely adopt new behaviors and strategies to counter what they now know law enforcement will be looking for.

In NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly’s preface, he clearly established the intended target audience for the intelligence report:

The aim of this report is to assist policymakers and law enforcement officials, both in Washington and throughout the country, by providing a thorough understanding of the kind of threat we face domestically. It also seeks to contribute to the debate among intelligence and law enforcement agencies on how best to counter this emerging threat by better understanding what constitutes the radicalization process.

“Policymakers,” “law enforcement officials,” “debate among intelligence and law enforcement agencies on how to counter this emerging threat.” There was no mention of public awareness or citizen assistance. It is unfortunate that the Commissioner did not display wisdom, OPSEC, or even common sense by disseminating the report only to what he identified above as his target audience.

Now that the report has been released to the public and Commissioner Ray Kelly had his spotlight moments in subsequent press conferences, a brief review of the document is in order, as it provided much food for thought for both the intelligence/law enforcement communities and the general American populace. The report and Commissioner Kelly’s press conferences also contained several controversial paragraphs and statements that revealed as much about the analysts who wrote the report as they did about radicalized American Muslims. Both aspects merit further analysis.

From the NYPD report:

…Much different from the Israeli-Palestinian equation, the transformation of a Western-based individual to a terrorist is not triggered by oppression, suffering, revenge, or desperation.

Rather, it is a phenomenon that occurs because the individual is looking for an identity and a cause and unfortunately, often finds them in the extremist Islam.

The wording of this section contained a blatantly Palestinian-apologist bias, ascribing the motives of Palestinian terrorists to “oppression, suffering, revenge, or desperation,” presumably heaped upon them by Jews in general or Israel in particular. It is the height of irresponsibility to provide terrorists with political or religious justification for their heinous acts, yet the NYPD did exactly that by drawing a non-existent distinction between what motivates Western Muslims and Palestinian Muslims to radicalize.

Palestinian youth, mirroring their Western counterparts, are also “looking for an identity and a cause,” and they too find it in extreme Islam. The only real difference in the radicalization process between the two is that the Palestinian lives in much closer proximity to his most hated enemy and skirmishes between Jews and Muslims are obviously more frequent and create lasting impressions. Recruitment and indoctrination are much easier among Palestinian youth because they are more likely to know or be related to someone who has died for “the cause,” either during attacks on Israeli soldiers or in a suicide bombing. Such martyrs are treated as religious heroes, and their names are revered.

It is a universal aspiration of youth to be a “hero,” and Palestinian youth are taught from a very young age that there are eternal rewards for terrorism. Not many young Muslims in Michigan collect “martyr cards,” as their Palestinian counterparts do. These cards are similar to American baseball cards but bear the image and pertinent life details of those who detonate themselves to kill “infidels.” Proximity to a conflict and a desire to “fit in” cannot be underestimated in its effect on future radicalization. Unfortunately, NYPD’s analysts not only underestimated those factors among Palestinians, but reinforced the highly questionable assumption that Palestinians are justified in their acts because of the “Israeli-Palestinian equation.” Terrorism, particularly against civilians, never should be given credibility by a law enforcement agency that has witnessed its effects firsthand and will likely do so in the future.

A strong point of the report was its analysis of the role of the Internet in spreading radical jihadist Islamic ideology throughout the world, and more specifically the West:

The jihadist ideology combines the extreme and minority interpretation [jihadi-Salafi] of Islam with an activist-like commitment or responsibility to solve global political grievances through violence. Ultimately, the jihadist envisions a world in which jihadi-Salafi Islam is dominant and is the basis of government.

This ideology is proliferating in Western democracies at a logarithmic rate. The Internet, certain Salafi-based NGO’s (non-governmental organizations), extremist sermons /study groups, Salafi literature, jihadi videotapes, extremist - sponsored trips to radical madrassas and militant training camps abroad have served as “extremist incubators” for young, susceptible Muslims -- especially ones living in diaspora communities in the West.

The Internet is a driver and enabler for the process of radicalization. In the Self-Identification phase, the Internet provides the wandering mind of the conflicted young Muslim or potential convert with direct access to unfiltered radical and extremist ideology.

It also serves as an anonymous virtual meeting place—a place where virtual groups of like-minded and conflicted individuals can meet, form virtual relationships and discuss and share the jihadi-Salafi message they have encountered.

The NYPD report correctly identified the Internet as, what Commissioner Kelly later called it, “the new Afghanistan,” or new battleground against Islamic extremism. The problem is that the Internet is used by countless groups of all political and religious stripes to spread their hateful ideologies. The KKK, Aryan Nation, criminal gangs of all nationalities, cults, and other groups that advocate offensive or dangerous ideologies all have presence on the Internet and communicate with each other through that medium. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies have the means to obtain legal authorization to monitor traffic on such Internet sites under certain conditions, but can do virtually nothing to prevent young Muslims from visiting the sites and being influenced by what they read there. Commissioner Kelly rightly pointed to the Internet as a critical battleground, but offered no insight into what NYPD’s intelligence division would recommend as an effective strategy to counteract the corrosive influence of the Internet.

The absence of such recommendations likely indicated that NYPD analysts had none to offer, but in their defense, analysts of other agencies are also at a loss. The free-flow of ideas on the Internet is the backbone of its usefulness. All measures to impose content controls or restrict access to the Internet are met with fierce opposition from free speech advocates who argue that once the government assumes control of or censors the Internet on American servers, the freedom and privacy of Internet users will be forfeited. That reality presents the daunting task of formulating a strategy to counter the influence of a radical ideology that threatens our very existence yet can be embraced in the living rooms and bedrooms of any home in America equipped with a computer.

How successful will American law enforcement and intelligence agencies be in detecting and identifying Americans on the path to Islamic extremism? The NYPD report provided an accurate but chilling answer:

The individuals are not on the law enforcement radar. Most have never been arrested or involved in any kind of legal trouble. Other than some commonalities in age and religion, individuals undergoing radicalization appear as “ordinary” citizens, who look, act, talk, and walk like everyone around them. In fact, in the United Kingdom, it is precisely those “ordinary” middle class university students who are sought after by local extremists because they are “clean skins.”

Detecting future terrorists who “look, act, talk, and walk like everyone around them” presents a challenge unlike any previously faced by American law enforcement and Intelligence agencies. The task is further complicated by political correctness and a tendency in the media and among political liberals to accuse the Bush administration of exaggerating the threat that Islamic extremism poses to America and its allies. The NYPD report confirms that the War on Terror, a term Democrats refuse to acknowledge or use today despite their initial enthusiastic embrace of it when it was politically profitable, is increasing in its intensity. What some call a Bush Administration “bumper sticker slogan” is a very real ideological war being waged in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Britain, and in American homes of youths searching for an identity, hero status, and like-minded social contacts.

As long as there is heroism in terrorism, the ideology will continue to spread at an alarming rate. The NYPD report, like most previous assessments by other agencies, provided little encouragement that an effective counter strategy can be crafted.

Technorati Tags:
NYPD, Homegrown terror, Commissioner Ray Kelly, Rand Corporation, Islamic Radicalization, Counterterrorism, Palestinian Terrorists, Terrorist ideology, OPSEC, Law Enforcement, Intelligence, War on Terror

FBI's Terror Cold Shoulder to ICE Justified

Congressmen and citizens are outraged that six years after 9/11, government agencies investigating suspected terrorists continue to stonewall each other. Specifically, allegations citing a lack of cooperation on terror investigations between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and FBI agents sparked a Senate Judiciary Committee investigation conducted by the Inspector General offices of the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice. The results of that joint investigation into failed cooperation were the focus of an AP report picked up by Fox News yesterday, and after reviewing the story Americans likely developed feelings of sympathy for victimized ICE agents while simultaneously forming harsh judgments of the FBI for its seeming refusal to share information on terror investigations with ICE. Both of those conclusions are wrong. While the FBI certainly holds its terrorist information close to the vest due the sensitive and even classified nature of those investigations, the FBI sometimes does so for good reason.

A news story today, seemingly unrelated to the AP story described above, served to illustrate why the FBI may have been reluctant to work closely and share sensitive investigative details with ICE agents. The Washington Times article, “U.S. Agents Accused of Aiding Islamist Scheme,” opened with the following paragraphs:

A criminal investigations report says several U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employees are accused of aiding Islamic extremists with identification fraud and of exploiting the visa system for personal gain.

The confidential 2006 USCIS report said that despite the severity of the potential security breaches, most are not investigated "due to lack of resources" in the agency's internal affairs department.

"Two District Adjudications Officers are allegedly involved with known (redacted) Islam terrorist members," said the internal document obtained by The Washington Times.

The fact that USCIS employees have provided Islamic radicals with visas, travel documents, and counterfeit identification, as reported by the Times, should have spurred Congress to act quickly and decisively to establish effective oversight of USCIS. Instead, Congress allowed USCIS to investigate itself, and in typical “fox guarding the hen house” fashion, to date it has conducted no investigations.

Although USCIS and ICE are technically separate agencies, ICE is the law enforcement arm of USCIS and the two agencies utilize a free flow of information including joint access to Customs and Immigration computer databases. In reality, USCIS and ICE are the law enforcement equivalent of conjoined twins, separate entities that share the same organs and would not survive if separated. Infection, or in this case corruption, in one was certain to spread to the other, and it did so. The Times further reported:

Another investigation involved more than seven USCIS and Immigration and Custom's Enforcement (ICE) employees — including special agents and senior district managers — who were moving contraband via "diplomatic pouches" to the United States from China.

ICE — the original investigating agency — downgraded the criminal investigation to a managerial problem, and the case was never prosecuted, a source close to the investigation said.

Given this relationship it is easy to see why FBI agents conducting counterterrorism investigations are reticent in their cooperation with ICE or flatly decline to share investigative data. If an agent cannot be sure that the information he has been asked to share with ICE will not end up in the hands of USCIS or ICE employees in a position to aid Islamic radicals, he would be justified in withholding that information.

Further reinforcing the FBI’s suspicions of ICE/USCIS is the troubling fact that in March USCIS established an Office of Security and Integrity to crack down on internal corruption, but as of today’s Times report, none of the sixty-five vacancies for internal investigators first advertised in March had been filled. With that shoddy record of internal corruption reform hanging over its head, it is no wonder that the FBI and other agencies targeting potential terrorists in America are more than a little reluctant to collaborate with ICE/USCIS.

Placed in the context of ICE/USCIS corruption and assistance with legal identification documents for Islamic radicals posing as Hispanics, The AP story accusing the FBI of failing to cooperate with ICE/USCIS should be looked at in a different light. The first two paragraphs, that yesterday created the impression that the FBI was simply being irrationally uncooperative toward ICE on terror investigations, make much more sense today to those unfamiliar with the core issue between the two agencies:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents ignored or dropped leads and at times entire cases involving terrorist activities because of disputes with the FBI, says a report by federal officials released Monday.

In examining 10 cases that began at ICE and were taken over by the FBI, the inspectors general of the Homeland Security and the Justice departments found that seven suffered from lack of cooperation until they were taken over by the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which the FBI controls.

Examined through the lens of the AP story only, the FBI seemed overly territorial at a time when information sharing between agencies is considered the most critical tool in the War on Terror. Yet when viewed together with today’s Times report on USCIS/ICE corruption, the puzzle pieces fall into place. It should surprise no one that the FBI was more comfortable cooperating when the investigations were taken over by an investigative task force under its own control, and through which it could track the dissemination of sensitive information. That level of operational security (OPSEC) is essential to any agency responsible for national security-related information.

There are always two sides to a story, and in the case of alleged FBI non-cooperation with USCIS/ICE, it takes the melding of two stories to form a complete explanation for why that non-cooperation may have been justified and continues to occur. It is rare to find an example of a situation in which information sharing between agencies may not be in the best interests of America. However, until USCIS/ICE produces tangible evidence of internal corruption reform including indictments, employment terminations, arrests, and prosecutions, the FBI would be wise to continue its tight controls over terrorism-related investigations.

Technorati Tags:
FBI, USCIS, ICE, Islamic Radicals, Aiding Terrorists, Information Sharing, Joint Investigations, Government Corruption, Congressional Oversight, OPSEC, War on Terror

From "Freakonomics" to "Freakoterror"?

Has NY Times blogger and co-author of the best-seller Freakonomics, Steven Levitt, unintentionally spawned a new phenomenon that could be referred to as “Freakoterror?” Levitt’s post to the Times’ Freakonomics blog yesterday titled “If You Were a Terrorist, How Would You Attack?” has generated much controversy in the media, with seemingly equal numbers condemning Levitt as irresponsible for giving terrorists ideas or praising him for getting ideas out into the open so counterterrorism officials can consider them and plan accordingly. Could Levitt's foray into issues beyond his expertise result in waves of attacks by "Freakoterrorists," inspired by the attack ideas submitted by Levitt's readers?

I will admit that my career involvement in threat assessment and security planning caused me to react initially to Levitt’s post title with a slight cringe. This was not because I think he was doing terrorists any favors with his amateurish attempt to address a deadly serious issue, but because such hypothetical questions tend to blur the distinctions between what law enforcement and intelligence agencies can prepare for realistically and grandiose attack plans that would be a nightmare but are ultimately unpreventable.

Much of the criticism directed at Levitt for his choice of topic centered on the notion that by soliciting readers to submit their ideas for effective terrorist attacks in the United States, Levitt was somehow providing terrorists with potential plans they may not have thought of previously. That logic is flawed on several levels: First, it is a misguided assumption that radical Islamic terrorists read the Freakonomics blog. For argument’s sake, even if terrorist planners read Levitt’s blog, they would not have gained any knowledge they did not already possess; second, Levitt would not have been accused of helping terrorists if he had merely posed the question a different way. For example, if Levitt had asked his readers to submit their best ideas for an action movie involving a terrorist attack in America, as former CIA officer Bruce Schneier did last year, his readers would have proposed the same ideas, using their imaginations to attempt to concoct “realistic” terrorist attacks that would make for riveting film entertainment.

Some authors or screenplay writers have proven prescient, such as Tom Clancy’s novel Debt of Honor, in which a large jet was flown into the U.S. Capitol building during a State of the Union speech, wiping out most high-ranking government leaders. Did al Qaeda come up with the 9/11 plot after gathering around a campfire in Afghanistan and listening to Clancy’s book on tape? Of course not. Drawings of aircraft ramming American buildings were found in Ramsey Yousef’s dwelling during the investigation of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, two years before Clancy’s novel was published. It should surprise no one that terrorists are perfectly capable of hatching effective and original plots without the help of creative geniuses in American literature or Hollywood.

It is a testament to our arrogance that so many condemned Levitt based on the belief that terrorists lack the intelligence to come up with thousands of hypothetical plans on their own, without help from New York Times readers. Such thinking misses the mark. While western counterterrorism officials go home each day to eat, sleep, and interact with their families as much as their demanding schedules permit, radical terrorist planners go “home” by moving from one part of daily training camp to another, caves or tents, eating while discussing potential methods of attack, and relaxing around the campfire at night by tossing out hypothetical attack plans for debate. That is their life and the sole purpose to which they have dedicated themselves.

Levitt’s hypothetical plan, imagined shortly after the DC Sniper rampage, involved a score of armed terrorists driving around in cities of various sizes randomly shooting citizens. That was his suggestion for a terror attack that would meet his proposed criteria for fear inducement and low potential for the attackers to be captured or killed. Levitt is a professor of economics, not a counterterrorism analyst, thus it was not surprising that his proposal was not particularly imaginative.

Reader submissions, on the other hand, offered a variety of plot ideas that ranged from beautiful female Lara Croft versions of al Qaeda to Molotov cocktails constructed only with items purchased in airport terminal Duty Free shops, including gift cigarette lighters that are now allowed on flights after the TSA ban was lifted. Liberal readers argued that the terrorist threat is greatly exaggerated by the Bush administration to keep Americans in fear and Republicans in office. One reader suggested that it would be simple for terrorists to acquire automatic weapons, cross the U.S.-Mexico border, and shoot up movie theaters in south Texas, further alleging that the reason that has not happened under Bush’s watch is that such threats are concocted by the government to enslave fearful citizens.

It is obvious that the author of that comment underestimates, or more likely avoids discussions of one important reason why we have not seen attacks of that nature on American theaters, restaurants, or shopping malls, and especially such establishments in Texas: the 2nd Amendment. Yes, it would be relatively easy for a determined terrorist to acquire a weapon and go on a rampage at a mall. Non-terrorists have done that, as recently as February at Trolley Square Mall in Salt Lake City. That gunman killed several people, but was cornered and shot by an off duty police officer who had been dining at a mall restaurant. That is the key obstacle for organized plots for terror attacks at public places in America: the terrorists cannot predict how many average citizens among the potential victims is carrying a firearm and could thwart the plot before it achieves its goal of mass casualties.

This, among other reasons, is why gunmen plotting mass casualties like the Columbine killers or the Virginia Tech shooter focus on schools. Students are not allowed to carry guns on campus, thus the possibility of resistance is greatly reduced. Some commenters clearly missed another Clancy novel, The Teeth Of The Tiger, in which Islamic terrorists attempt a firearms rampage in a Northern Virginia shopping mall and are killed by off-duty counterterrorism operatives who resided in the area.

Such an attack might work in Britain or other “enlightened” European nations that have banned gun ownership by citizens, but Americans present a well-armed and action-oriented populace that would not easily be cowed into submission. American malls, theaters, and restaurants are filled each night with men and women who carry firearms and are willing to use them to preserve the lives of their families and fellow citizens. I can assure Levitt’s commenters that terrorists would not do much damage in a Texas (or Northern Virginia) theater or mall before being brought to justice by an armed movie-goer. Those clothing bulges aren’t concealing food smuggled into the movies to avoid high concession stand prices!

While Americans love to conjure up imaginative conspiracy theories, movie plots, or methods terrorists could use to attack us, ultimately the exercise is futile. Counterterrorism officials, limited as they are by budget constraints, must pick and choose which forms of attack are most probable, and dedicate resources and assets accordingly. Americans rightfully do not want to live in a police state or pay the terribly burdensome taxes that would be required to fund efforts to secure the country against all possible attacks. The alternative to a police state is what we see currently: government doing what it can with available resources, combining forces with an armed and vigilantly observant populace, knowing that we will be attacked but hoping to thwart as many attempts as possible.

In the end, it is good that we have Tom Clancy’s and others with active imaginations among us to help citizens think tactically and be more aware of their surroundings and potential targets in their communities. In a war against a radical ideology that devalues innocent life, preparation is not paranoia.

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Steven Levitt, Freakonomics, Freakoterror, Terrorist Attack Plans, 2nd Amendment, Counterterrorism, Tom Clancy, Mall Shootings, Bruce Schneier, Deterrence, War on Terror